Yvonne Sherwood

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. My research and teaching are grounded in Indigenous feminist thought, community-based knowledge practices, and land-based learning. I am from Sp'q'n'iʔ and Schitsu'umsh  (Spokane-Coeur d’Alene Peoples) and was raised on the Yakama Nation Reservation. I maintain my connections and responsibilities to my communities and the river that connects our nations.

 

In my work in Mississauga, I serve as a member of the University of Toronto Mississauga’s Indigenous Language Reclamation Board, where I help to build and maintain respectful relationships with surrounding First Nations and the urban Indigenous community while developing programming and curriculum. My contributions support language revitalization, community connection, and Indigenous governance in institutional spaces.

 

My community-engaged research includes active involvement in land-based language reclamation efforts. I serve as a classroom volunteer and lead evaluator for an Indigenous-led school in the traditional territories of the Spokane people, where Interior Salish language immersion and cultural education are central to reclaiming sovereignty, wellbeing, and Indigenous legal orders. This work redefines educational success through Indigenous ethics, values, and teachings.

 

My scholarship engages the lived critiques and organizing strategies of Indigenous women on the frontlines of environmental and gender justice. Drawing from Fourth World theory, I examine the interplay of  settler colonialism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and settler law. My manuscript in progress explores how mainstream environmental movement spaces appropriate Indigenous knowledges without territorial or relational accountability, while the leadership of Indigenous women “weave us in,” demonstrating commitment to the power of our teachings and our more-than-human kin.

 

In the classroom, I invite students to think critically about the relationship between settler colonial logics and everyday life. Drawing on Native feminisms and critical pedagogy, I examine the limitations of legal reform and the possibilities of refusal, resistance, and collective imagination. I encourage students to consider how power shapes our relationships to land, law, and one another—and how we might challenge systems of oppression.

 

Before entering academia, I worked as a community organizer and volunteer supporting health, cultural, and environmental justice efforts. I was a co-researcher with the Center for World Indigenous Studies on the Radiation Risk Assessment and Action Project, where I conducted social and cultural analyses of nuclear contamination and its impacts on Indigenous communities. To support the translation of scientific research for community audiences, I earned a Certificate in Popular Science Communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. I also worked as a researcher on the Native Youth Capacity Building Project (2019–2020), supporting Native youth organizing across California.